Champion of girls' education fearful of deportation

Nick Toscano

The Taliban tried to kill Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai for championing girls' education. In a weatherboard cottage in Melbourne's west lives Muhammad Noor, a teacher who fled Pakistan after being shot in the chest for the same reason.

Changes to Australian immigration policy have renewed fears he could be sent back and targeted again.

Mr Noor, the founder of a school in Pakistan for disadvantaged boys and girls, felt the full force of the Taliban objections to girls' education when a group of gunmen shot him in his driveway. The school was razed by rocket launchers while he was in hospital.

''If I go back to my country, it's suicide,'' Mr Noor says.

He lives in a house in Sunshine that he shares with four other asylum seekers. They're not sure if the Abbott government can stop the boats, but they know their dreams of permanent residency have been dealt a painful blow.

Like 23,000 other asylum seekers who arrived since August last year, the best they can hope for is a temporary protection visa, which means they have to reapply for protection every three years and could be returned home.

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''We don't know what will happen,'' Mr Noor says. ''All we can do is pray.''

The 33-year-old has been kicked from country to country, and now feels he is not welcome in Australia either.

Forced out of Pakistan, he fled for the United Arab Emirates, where he remained until the government revoked the visas of more than 4000 Shiite muslims in February, giving them 24 hours to leave. He paid $9000 to a Malaysian people-smuggler to take him by boat to Australia, with the promise of a ''good, safe country''.

Mr Noor was released from Australian detention in May under the government's ''no advantage'' rule that stripped bridging visa-holders of the right to work and limited them to 89 per cent of the dole - about $31 a day - until their refugee claims were finalised.

But the reintroduction of temporary protection visas mean this state of limbo could now continue indefinitely, warns Paul Power of the Refugee Council of Australia,

''People will [be] constantly worrying about the prospect of being returned home,'' he said.

At the first weekly briefing on the new hardline boat deterrence policy on Monday, Immigration Minister Scott Morrison said the Coalition's commitment to ending permanent protection for refugees was ''now in force''.

Anyone who arrived before July 19 and is found to be a refugee can only be eligible for temporary protection.

The visas give refugees work rights, but may force them to relocate to parts of Australia with labour shortages. Those who receive Centrelink payments will be required to join work-for-the-dole schemes.

Mr Power said the Coalition's policy left the door open to offering permanent residency after five years, in exceptional circumstances, at the discretion of Mr Morrison.

Mr Noor hopes he will be able to enrol in further training at multicultural education provider AMES, to help him land a job in the transport, security or aged care sectors, once his refugee claim is processed.

But, like his four flatmates, Mr Noor wants certainty in his future most of all.

''We cannot change Australian government policy,'' he said.

''But I haven't done anything bad in my life, so I don't know why I'm being treated like this.''